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My friend dropped acid and he's not coming back......

I think if Ativan (just a benzo that calms you way down) 'solved' it then over time he would probably also have calmed down himself and snap out of it. Benzo's don't really solve psychosis.
If lyvid's friend is that far gone he may benefit from timely care, diagnosis and possibly antipsychotics. Even if turns out to be transient it seems like there is much more to be gained from being on seroquel or olanzapine etc for a while than you lose from it - yeah you'll be dull and drowsy etc and chronic use is not that great for you potentially - esp instead of letting it progress.

I have an uncle who is schizophrenic..

Anyway maybe don't give up on your friend before attempting to have him looked at properly, unless you are in a country where psychiatry is 100 years behind - in which case he is probably better off without it. I guess the real issue lies with the guy likely being so paranoid and confused (from the sound of it) that he probably will find psychiatry scary suspicious and will resist it paranoidly, than with treatment being a good option. Correct me if I'm wrong.
So probably best if he trusts you, sees that it is a better option than suffering, and is reassured that he won't be locked up against his will etc - it likely takes a lot to overcome that paranoia. Hopefully he has family to guide him there?
 
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Yeah has your friend tried antipsychotics? In general I consider them a last resort but for people experiencing lasting psychosis, they can be a real help.
 
I came down with psychosis without drugs being the main cause. The explanation doesn't have to be all cutesy or whatever you said but it's obvious that LSD played a role in this man's mental state. This doesn't mean LSD is evil or anything. Many drugs can bring about psychosis or delirium in people prone to it. No need to get your back up against the wall or anything.
 
I dunno about "many" drugs can do it. Many drugs seem to get the blame for it because it's cutesy. I'm certain if LSD vanished tomorrow there would be absolutely no change whatsoever in the numbers of people suffering psychosis.
 
i dont think you understand how lsd is much more likely to trigger psychosis in the mentally unstable. it isnt coincidence that many people who have been institutionalised (myself included), took acid before the episode. im not placing all the blame on lsd, there where many factors involved, but in my case i think it was like putting jet fuel on a big bonfire.

again lsd is not good or evil, but it is important to be aware that there are risks involved unless there is a healthy respect and understanding for the deeper aspects that can arise.
 
A huge study didn't really show a really significant correlation between psychedelics and mental illness I think, but what still makes you right IMO mysterie is that it may mean that you trigger yours much faster at a younger age, and possibly more dramatically.

But I imagine it's pretty difficult to avoid mental instability becoming a problem your whole life long.

The conclusion is still not that everybody including mentally unstable people can trip fine because of that study... exacerbating conditions is still potentially very serious and can possibly mean a huge difference in whether you can cope with how your illness develops. It's so much harder if it escalates episodically, and I have a feeling the study doesn't account for that.

So afaik the truth here lies somewhere in the middle. It is not as extreme as LSD just flat out causing mental illness and it's not perfectly safe either.

Despite my uncle I never saw any sign of schizophrenia or becoming psychotic myself - never really had those particular symptoms and instead have proven to be resilient even during/after very heavy trips. Not that they couldn't confuse or traumatize me etc - sometimes they sure did, on occasion I got e.g. a phobia from it that took a year or so to go away again... but my issues are different. I do have ASD and ADD and my experience is that tripping made everything about me (positive and negative) more intense and extreme, probably faster than if I never took them.
Unfortunately it still took a lot of years trying to cope to get diagnosed, good part is that I got a very big chunk of my student loans nullified.
 
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How would you even accurately test that? Just happen to find someone genetically predisposed to psychosis/schizophrenia, have them trip at the exact right time in their brains development for this to happen? Most people get schizophrenia, or their symptoms manifest themselves in their early 20's. Most of these people happen to also be drug users. I've done tons of psychedelics/dissociatives/research chemicals and I know for a fact that I have had long lasting psychotic effects from them on a few occasions. There are many variables to account for but I absolutely believe that many recreational drugs can be a trigger for it, especially those with NMDA antagonism, d2, d3 agonism and 5ht2a agonism as well as CB1 and 2 agonism. But in the right people under the right circumstances.

Yes people suffer from mental illness without drugs even existing. Drawing a clear cut correlation between usage and mental illness is hard because most people who suffer from mental health problems also abuse drugs but I can say for absolutr certain that psychedelics/dissociatives/stimulants/cannabinoids can all cause a "drug induced psychosis" , there is absolutely no doubt about this and it is treated in hospital all the time wirh the same drugs used to treat psychosis/schizophrenia and to great effect. Many snap out of it after the trip has ended but some don't and these are likely the people genetically predisposed to mental illnesses.
 
I am also currently recovering from a psychosis that seems unrelated to my drug usage since it happened after I quit using and lasted many months. This says absolutely nothing negative about LSD, it doesn't mean it's evil but it does mean that it is something to be respected and used with an awareness and caution as shit can and will happen to some people.
 
How about comparing a big population of people who tripped and a big population of people who never tripped and check the rates of mental illness. Correlation is as simple as that, it says nothing about causation, because there can always be a hidden indirect reason for the correlation, like a bigger tendency toward some behavior - or the reverse causality of what you were suspecting.

You don't need to somehow people with still latent mental illness and see how they react to tripping - not only virtually impossible but also unethical.

Like I said: if there was a big correlation i.e. trippers being mentally ill at much higher rates than non-trippers, then yeah like you say it is hard to draw a connection (not a correlation which is just observing higher prevalence), however if there is no significant correlation found then it's not unclear because there isn't a mechanism you have to find to explain it. Instead it powerfully suggests the statistics don't support the assumptions about psychedelics linked to mental illness that otherwise would have never manifested.

As stated earlier: I still would expect psychedelics to trigger and speed up manifestation and may make mental illness more severe (unless perhaps in specific circumstances of targeted responsible therapeutic use in those suited with less contraindicated conditions where psychedelics may help)... unfortunately that would still suggest that if it causes people to have their mental illness be triggered at younger age (which otherwise would still manifest later), on average you'd observe a bigger number of mentally ill among trippers simply because there is a bigger chance that you are counting a person as mentally ill if tripping lowers the average age of it manifesting.
Even this is apparently not really supported by data.

And no this is not a defense/attack case on LSD or psychedelics, it's just stating something objective. I do still strongly believe great care must be taken to check if you may have reasons to worry about mental illness, like past issues or past behavior or conditions running in your family. It would certainly be extremely hard to predict well so that it can be avoided although apparently there is such a thing as a genetic sensitivity to cannabis making you psychotic (especially in your teen years) which can be tested. So hopefully in the future similar markers can be tested for. It may become a topic of much debate how much to screen for in neonates as technology progresses.

Anyway psychedelics and mental illness, whether latent or manifest, can too often be a very unhealthy combination (though with some conditions it is much worse than with others, I'm sure). I have pretty much no patience for people suggesting DMT to treat schizophrenics in casual setting. If there is clinical research (would have to get ethically approved) sure, I'm curious too, but otherwise it's incredibly irresponsible...
 
I couldn't agree more that psychs and mental illness are a horrible combination. Two falls ago I was in Peru at a ayahuasca retreat. You really get to know the 20+ people you're there with fast at these things. Within the first day I noticed one of the guys was off and was struggling with some sort of mental illness in his like. I at least felt I was seeing the tip of the iceberg. Sure enough by the time the 2nd or 3rd ceremony happened he never really came back fully from that other place. Unfortunately for him after the week of aya drinking there was a week of huachuma (San Pedro) ceremonies which put him even deeper and deeper into his madness.
Since then his life has been full of psych wards, physical assaults on the people he loves cause of the drug induced mania and just utter madness. He's not coming around and things aren't getting better.
There's time when a person needs to truly just stay on this "channel" and regroup to have a decent quality of life. Mental illness and psychs are a slippery slop that's not the slightest bit forgiving.
 
I appreciate your replies dude. Of course an open mind helps with some things, but I continue to meet people who are so "open-minded" that they're brain fell out long ago, and they don't even realize it. Cheers to skepticism and scrutiny.
 
Solipsis said:
How about comparing a big population of people who tripped and a big population of people who never tripped and check the rates of mental illness. Correlation is as simple as that, it says nothing about causation, because there can always be a hidden indirect reason for the correlation, like a bigger tendency toward some behavior - or the reverse causality of what you were suspecting.
Click to expand...

Better yet, just take a few hundred or a few thousand psychotic people and ask how many had tried psychedelics and was it closely correlated with the onset of their pychoses?
 
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